I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.

And it's impossible for me to read Henry James.

Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away.

All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about.

Well, I love fishing. I wouldn't kill a fly myself but I've no hesitation in killing a fish. A lot of men are like that. No bother. Out you come. Thump. And that's not the only reason.

If I wrote a play with four characters every single one of them would talk like me regardless of age or sex.

All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.